[Thoughts on Training Camp, Part Two]

Firstly, I would like to thank all of you who read my last blog post.  The response I received was that of love and support and expressions of joy because of how good God is.  Thank you for your prayers, comments, and messages.

Secondly, and the purpose of this post, would be a more extensive and chronological account of the days we had at camp.  I’ll do my best to refer you to my previous post when I’ve already explained parts of the week.  Mostly, part one of this post was about days one and four with a few details from in between.  In this post, I plan to give you my favorite memories of the first five days.  Due to how much there is to tell, there will be a third post for days six through ten.  It was literally the coolest ten days ever, so I hope you can endure that much reading!

AUGUST 8^th: Arrival

I met several people from various squads at the airport and we made our way to the area we were supposed to be in to be picked up by the shuttle.  Half of us (including me) ended up walking a little farther because we couldn’t figure our where the correct part of the airport was…  And, even when we did find it, we waited there for nearly two hours before we were picked up.  We thought we were in a rush to get there but instead we got a taste of some waiting we would end up doing on the race!  It gave us the chance, though, to get to know some of our peoples. 

After arriving in Gainesville on the shuttle, we met our squad members as we trickled through the line at registration before grabbing our packs and making the first trek down to our campsite to set up our tents.  I had worked especially hard at home to make my tent setup process be as quick as it could be.  If you didn’t see my tent video on Instagram, go check that out (my handle is @do_re_is_me)!  I got it down to about five minutes!  HOWEVER, when you are sweating up a storm because of the walk to camp and the awful humidity, it tends to take a bit longer… It was actually pretty funny!

It was also cool to meet some of the people whose packing videos I had watched on YouTube.  There were a couple of them helping out at registration and I was like “Whoa! I know you!”  HAHA!  Anyways, following all of this, we had our first session of worship (the amazing things from part one happened here) and heard from the Adventures in Missions director, Bill Swan!  His message really challenged us to search our hearts to find and make space to fill with Jesus.

We, then, made our way back to camp and spent the first sweaty night in our tents.  I figured out the next morning why it had been so hot in my tent—I forgot to open the vents at the top of my rain cover.  Lesson learned.

AUGUST 9^th: Asia Day

In “Asia”, we couldn’t serve ourselves our food at meal times, we saved our chopsticks to use for every meal throughout the day, we said “Namaste” to everyone as a greeting, and we began our daily rotation as squads cleaning after each meal (N-Squad cleaned at breakfast, O-Squad at lunch, and P-Squad at dinner).

We had our first squad time together mid-morning.  We began to do various team-building exercises where our leaders had split us up into potential teams, ones we could be working with for the year.  This happened a few times throughout camp squad meetings.  During the first one, I had the privilege to be in a team that worked remarkably quickly to accomplish the tasks given to us and, although this didn’t end up being my team, there was an interesting relationship that started in this first team exercise.  A particular woman on this team (she knows who she is; LOVE YOU) happens to take initiative in a leadership position very well.  I immediately noticed this.  She is an amazing woman of God, gifted in the prophetic and a worshiper at heart.  I, in that time however, only saw from the external.  I pre-judged her and I didn’t address it until later.  [I’m gonna put this story on hold, but will come back to it because it was actually a HUGE lesson for me during camp.]

Sessions (we usually had several sermons/lessons throughout each day and worship before the nightly sessions; I take extensive notes so I’ll describe the sessions briefly):

Bill Swan taught on empowering the church through: Intimacy, Community, and Mission.  “Life is mission and mission is life.”

Tim Dilbeck said own your race and RELEASE STUPID EARLY!

Karen Dilbeck encouraged us to ask God every day, “Lord, who is on your heart today?”

Deon Vanstaden taught about the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of unbelievers (condemnation vs conviction) and entering into partnership, companionship, and intimacy with Him.  “The Holy Spirit doesn’t come to have visitation rights, but to have habitation rights! […] You can live recklessly when you aren’t filled with the Holy Spirit, but your walk changes when you are filled with Him.”

Before dinner and the last session of the day, we were told to gather our daypacks because two squads (O and P) would be doing the airport layover simulation after session.  We waited outside the training center until we were allowed to go back inside.  We were required to stay in the “airport” from that point until 7am, at which time we were to be packed and leaving.  This simulation gave us the airport layover experience where we had to stay overnight and try to sleep amidst the noise and brightness of a typical airport.  I got just over one hour of actual sleep that night.  It was a bit rough, but I got to talk to several people and get to know a few people’s stories.  Honestly, it was worth the loss in sleep.

AUGUST 10^th: Latin America Day

In “Latin America”, we ate some great food.  (Although, when it comes to the salsa, you can’t beat the one my family makes at home; I can get you guys the recipe to try if you like.  Haha!  Jokes, jokes.  But, still.).  There weren’t many cultural rules that we had to follow on this day, so we just enjoyed the food and did our rotations cleaning after every meal.

I think the biggest part of the day came just before our squad meeting in the morning.  Bill Swan had spoken that morning about acceptance and forgiveness, then touching on it again at the night session.  Something he said hit home, “We have to stop forcing each other to play the game of acceptance and just love each other.  We have to address ourselves and say, ‘This is the game I play and I want to stop playing it.’”  Immediately, my mind went to the previous day and the attitude of criticism I had had toward one of the women on my squad.  I cannot tell you the conversation I had in my mind during this session, but I felt I needed to take this directly to her.  Unsure of myself, I went to grab my daypack from along the wall and her bag was near mine.  She followed over toward me shortly after that.  I took a deep breath and told her I had something I needed to say to her.  Then, she said the same thing!  I went on and told her that I had compared her to every “popular” girl in high school that overlooked ad looked down at me.  She wasn’t surprised at all!  She said she felt she needed to assert herself in the group because she felt overlooked and discounted because of her age (being one of the youngest in the squad).  We ended up praying together and a beautiful respect and friendship came out of it!  I was absolutely amazed by the power that honesty and forgiveness brought us.  [There’s actually one more part to this story!  I’ll get to that in part three!]

There were a few other highlights to mark the day. 

Madie (my squad mentor) approached me at some point during the day and we talked about meeting up to do that inner healing prayer meeting I had talked about in part one. 

We had a squad-wide exercise time and I got to do yoga!!!  I LOVE yoga and it was one of the most refreshing times.  My team later found out that I’m pretty into it and I’ll probably end up doing some yoga with them on the race!  YAY!

We had several amazing teachings at during sessions throughout the day, but the night session was so good.  Bill talked on forgiveness again and opened a time for us to share with a leader some forgiveness that needed to take place.  I ended up praying with my squad leader and God really revealed some things I held onto.  I’ll keep mentioning that another friendship was sparked because God gave me the peace to feel truly accepted by so many people on my squad.  Now, this squad leader, Erica, is already a dear friend and I’m so, so grateful. (VIRTUALLY SENDING YOU LIKE THE BIGGEST MONKEY NOISE-FILLED HUG!)

AUGUST 11^th: Africa Day

In “Africa”, we ate with our hands and the women wore skirts or loose pants!  It was so fun to get messy with our food, but, I mean, I really just don’t like skirts…  I think I’ll love the ones I’ll buy in Africa, though, when we get there!

God started speaking to me that day about being still.  I had my meeting with Madie and Teresa and I sat in his presence.  I actually ended up having what felt like a direct conversation with him.  I will have to refer you to part one to really hear about what came out of this day.  I’m just gonna say this was probably my favorite day, so just go read the first part and see what God did.  Who knows?  Maybe, God has something for you there.

After the evening session, we went to a different part of the campus to start our community tenting night.  Massive ten person tents were put up and all of our packs were placed inside for the night.  I had a tent that, unfortunately, had experienced some leaks because of some rain around dinner time.  A couple of my tent mates’ things were wet when we got to the tents that night, but I was unaware until the next morning when I found out that they ended up pulling their stuff out onto the sidewalk and sleeping under the stars.  Oops!  It was a bit of a mess.  Luckily, they were very gracious about the whole thing.

AUGUST 12^th: Gender Retreat Day

The guys left that morning to hike and camp on a portion of the Appalachian Trail, leaving the girls to our day together!

The Men/Women’s retreat day was SO amazing.  The women on my squad came up with a list of values together to define the culture we want to develop.  We discussed shame vs. guilt and the impact it can have to acknowledge the lies we as women believe about ourselves.  We named our shame and spoke truth into it.  There were breakout sessions where we could choose two out of four teachings on women in the Bible, so I got to hear about Mary Magdalene and Deborah from two very knowledgeable and dynamic female speakers (Lisa and Sam). 

As I heard teaching after teaching, the lineup of the messages really impacted and deepened the understanding of what exactly God was breaking off of me.  Each lesson strengthened the next and layers upon layers of things hidden in my heart were exposed to the healing and light of Jesus.  Everything about this day solidified the message God wanted to get across to me: ARISE! Live fully alive every day of your life.  We are designed to be overcomers and life-giving creations, not death-giving.

I know, I know.  This post is long and IT’S ONLY FIVE OF THE TEN DAYS.  I really couldn’t condense it, though.  This story is so important to me and to my walk with the Lord.  So, I ask that you bear with me as I process all of it, not just the surface level parts.  It’s only one more part, I swear!! However, I want to show you the depth to which my God took my squad and I, and I want you to know that this is not just for me.  It is for anyone who is willing to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

TO BE CONTINUED